We need not fear civil marriage
and divorce. We should embrace it as an expression of freedom and democratic
values, as well as a way to ensure the free expression of Jewishness of the
Jewish people.

And should it come to pass that civil marriage is the Law of the
Land, We the People of Israel – the Jews, as well as Israeli citizens of all
religions – will have “light, and gladness, and joy, and honor” (Esther 8:16).

In Queen Esther's day, she
gathered all the Jews of Shushan to fast for her. This solid communal support
gave her the strength to bring salvation to the entire community.

In Israel
today, the communal support is represented by state institutions. Not only the
rabbis are responsible for solutions; the state carries responsibility as well.
All must gather with the common purpose of resolving the agunah problem.
Resolution for the agunah will come from within that unity of purpose.

We must demand that Orthodox
Judaism make herculean efforts to use all Halachic solutions. That a wide range
of Rabbanim meet and leave no stone unturned in order to reach a consensus on a
wide sweeping and broad answer for current and future agunot. They have brave
shoulders to stand on such as Rav Ovadia Yosef z’l who used everything he could
to free agunot.

Until a consensus solution is
found, we can and must prevent future agunot via the Halachic Prenup.

Menachem Friedman, a member of
Bar-Ilan University’s department of sociology and anthropology, believes the
Israeli public is more interested in seeing haredim share the economic burden
than in joining the army.

“Most Israelis want haredim to
go to work and not live in poverty and on welfare,” Freidman said. “The public
sees their numbers growing because the average haredi family has more than
double the number of children as non-haredim. And every year, as the national
budget continues to be cut, more haredim enter the scholar society” of
full-time yeshiva study.

One of the possible electoral
sources for Abutbul’s extra votes was the radical, anti-Zionist factions in the
city who usually refuse to vote in any elections due to their ideological
opposition to the State of Israel. Although the rabbinic leaders of the
anti-Zionist community spoke out against voting, there were reports of members
of those groups voting throughout the day.

The haredi media also reported
late on Tuesday that the leadership of the Toldos Ahron and Dushinsky hassidic
groups had permitted women to vote in the election.

Leading
American Jewish groups are readying a major campaign against the singular
control wielded by the chief rabbinate on matters of personal status in Israel.

As the North American Jewish federation system considers its strategy, a new
coalition is also being organized by the American Jewish Committee, which plans
to partner with Israeli groups working toward ending the chief rabbinate’s
monopoly over marriage.

For now, the Yerushalmim system only works
in small, community-based establishments like Cafe Mizrachi, where there is a
core of regular, standing customers who are willing to take part in the new
project, said Leibowitz.

“Our real challenge is the rabbinate and I
think we’ve succeeded; we’ve generated a public conversation,” he said. “I’m a
community builder, I’m not a kosher expert. We’re taking the kosher community
and the nonkosher community and building trust and partnership.”

“It’s like YES and HOT,” added Mizrachi,
referring to the satellite and cable television companies, respectively. “We
need competition in this space, because it will make us all stronger.”